


as tightly as you held onto me

by datteba (ineachandeveryway)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Gen, Mother/Son Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineachandeveryway/pseuds/datteba
Summary: Boruto, kindled nineteen only recently, is anything but a mirror image of his father at this age. He takes life more seriously than he has to, and so often she finds him with a pinched brow and narrowed eyes, as if the world is in a constant and concerning state of disarray. She misses the days when his face wasn’t held together with needles, when it fell like soft fabric and gave away every ecstatic emotion./ Or, Hinata reaches out to her son.
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 11
Kudos: 46





	as tightly as you held onto me

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of a fic I posted roughly two months after the manga ended, so six years ago. It's pretty much just me projecting my favorite aspects of angst (particularly regarding the role of mothers, their relationships with their first born, etc.) onto a vague dynamic I was interested in at the time. _Boruto_ canon has no real bearing here (although there are some cherry-picked references to _Naruto: The Last_ , despite my disregarding the movie as a whole). I'm simply too lazy to incorporate canon as it exists into this, especially since I didn't bother reading or watching _Boruto_ beyond the initial arc about Sarada. I also have my own ideas about what Hinata did in immediate post-canon, so. I hope that clears things up. 
> 
> Title taken from ["To Build a Home"](https://genius.com/The-cinematic-orchestra-to-build-a-home-lyrics) by The Cinematic Orchestra. As always, comments are appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!

Boruto is always surprised by the emptiness of a day.

He has no missions—the Hokage left recently for a summit, meaning most nin are on standby or at guard—and Sarada and Mitsuki went ahead without him for sake night with the rest of their classmates. He hasn't spoken to Himawari in a few days either, her presence no longer there to greet him every time at the door to their home. His little sister has grown up now. She has her own burdens to carry, incumbent jinchūriki that she is. And his mother—

—he doesn’t know what his mother is doing. 

He walks aimlessly through the Village Hidden in the Leaves, eyes boring into the dirtied cobblestone path underneath his feet. His hair hangs lazily over one shoulder, plaited into a careless braid riddled with little knots and pulls from recent mission skirmishes. The villagers smile kindly at him as he walks past, and he offers them each a stubble-marked nod of his head, not just because he is the Hokage’s son, but because he has learned to care, in his own way. 

“Naruto?” echoes Hinata when he finally steps past the threshold. She's somewhere in the kitchen. He can hear the slide of her spoon in a pot.

Not bothering to answer her call, Boruto slides off his sandals and saunters into the living room, depositing himself onto the couch. His head hangs back over the edge of it and he groans, exhausted by nothing at all. Hinata walks over, soup-soaked spoon in hand. 

“Oh,” she murmurs. “I didn’t realize it was you. Your footfalls are the same.”

He grunts incoherently, and she smiles, stepping over to take the open space on the couch beside him. Boruto’s arm curls casually around his mother’s frame from its place on top of the loveseat. “How was your day?” she asks, unsure of where else to start.

When her son deadpans, "Uneventful," she has to fight back a laugh. Boruto, kindled nineteen only recently, is anything but a mirror image of his father at this age. He takes life more seriously than he has to, and so often she finds him with a pinched brow and narrowed eyes, as if the world is in a constant and concerning state of disarray. She misses the days when his face wasn’t held together with needles, when it fell like soft fabric and gave away every ecstatic emotion. 

“Braid my hair," she says suddenly, setting the spoon down on the table. Boruto blinks as she turns the other way and loosens the clasp holding her hair. The cascade of midnight waves that tumble out are reminiscent of her younger days, when she wore it down most often. 

“I haven’t done that since I was a kid,” he mutters. He casts his gaze aside, pinpointing it on the rock face across from their backyard. The fading evening light splits his father's face at a diagonal. 

“And that's all the more reason to,” says Hinata matter-of-factly. She turns to him with a smirk and briefly studies the length of his hair. "You need the practice." Boruto frowns at the casual jab. She's seen how much trouble he has doing it for himself(—not that this will do anything to help him in that matter, but it's a good enough excuse). Her smile widens with amusement as she fixes him with an insistent stare, and he finally relents with a loud, drawn-out sigh. 

He moves to shift his weight so that he can comfortably face her back. Hinata senses his fingers hovering at the nape of her neck. This tradition is ages-old memory, tucked into the confines of their history behind all of the growing up that he has been trying so hard to do. And the truth is—she misses her son, terribly. She misses holding a baby in her arms and knowing every last thing about him. She misses hearing the shrill of his voice as he ran barreling down the stairs. 

“How do you want it?” Boruto asks, voice quiet. 

Hinata keeps it simple. “Any way you like.”

His fingers start to sift through her hair, parting it into equal fractions. Despite not having done this for her in years, he works quickly, muscle memory apparent as he effortlessly plaits her hair down her back. Hinata is reminded that things like this were never quite her husband's forte. He was good with his hands, no doubt, but in other ways. Better built for picking cobwebs out of her hair than doing anything with it after. He never liked her hair when it was tied down, anyway. 

Boruto stops suddenly, holding the leftover strands gently aloft in between his fingers. He takes a piece of twine out of his pocket, and she feels him tie it above the portion left unbraided. “Done already?” she asks, trying to mask the disappointment in her voice. She needs longer than this with him. Ten minutes isn't enough. 

“No, wait here.”

He disappears into the hallway before she can utter a word. Hinata waits patiently, hands folded in her lap. The heavy aroma of the soup wafts under her nose from the kitchen. It needs a little more shichimi, she remembers. Boruto always likes it to be spicier than normal. Himawari, too, though she doesn't know that her daughter will be making it tonight. 

The perpetual emptiness of her house bears down on her. Everything that she's had to give is stored in these rooms, in the gardens outside. It's a good home, a safe one. There are memories of love and laughter littered everywhere. But the current lack thereof does nothing to buoy her memories, and she feels sometimes like she's drowning. Like the moment that Naruto and Boruto and Himawari walk out the door, rarely returning, her happiness somehow loses meaning. 

It's not that being a mother is something she's ungrateful for. Hinata has accomplished a lot in her time. Before the children, she had clan responsibilities, and before the marriage, she had thesis work. Even the life she's had afterward is a satisfactorily eventful one, what with being the Hokage's wife. 

But it's hard to let go sometimes of the happiness that comes from necessity. She misses being a place for her children to belong to. She hates watching them have to grow up. And the distance that it creates with her son especially is unbearable. 

She doesn’t even realize it until fingers start to sift through her hair again that he's back. Thoughts of distance vanish from her mind as she flinches, then tries not to move. He’s poking at the braid in certain places, parting strands just a millimeter apart before fitting something through. The anticipation intrigues her, but Hinata stays her gaze. Let him take his time with her. As a mother, she deserves it.

But maybe _want_ would be the better word. 

Boruto says, "Finished," and she lets go of a breath. His fingers fall away as she moves from the couch to the mirror, wide moon eyes reflecting off of the glass surface when she takes in his handiwork. Red poppies stick out from equally distanced places in the braid, their black centers like accents against the darkness of her hair. This reflection is all too familiar to her. She's seen it in pictures scattered all around the house. 

“ _Oh,_ ” she murmurs. Pained, touched. 

“I thought of your wedding," he says casually, but out of the corner of her eye she sees the whisper of a smile. As he comes to stand behind her, she turns, reaching out to him. Her hands are callused from years of use, but she remembers the feeling of her son's cheeks in her hands, and a tear slips past her lip. Boruto doesn’t complain, letting her hold him in the cup of her hands like she used to when he was a child. Her skin only ever feels soft against his face. This sensation signals home in a way that nothing else can. 

"My darling," she croons, laughing in that way that usually only his father can illicit. His cheeks crimson at the thought, and he realizes that for once something his father does so effortlessly, he's not very good at at all. It makes him angry at himself, for not noticing. For letting himself walk around this expanse of walls—tired, listless, unsure as to what to do outside of the life he built for himself with weapons and generational trauma. All the while, she wasted away here. Their support. Their last pillar standing. After years of being held up by the courage of her husband and the naivete of her children, she resigned to holding up herself.

Boruto spares a subtle glance at the messy plaits hanging down his shoulder, an idea forming in his head. Hinata's fingers start to slip away from his cheeks, but he brings up his hand and catches hers with the silhouette of his own. She looks at him, startled, and he thinks to himself: ten minutes. He owes it to his mother to have more than ten minutes. 

" _Ma,_ braid my hair."

**Author's Note:**

> As a side note: the sort of weaving narration going back and forth between Boruto and Hinata is on purpose. You're meant to see their view of things when and where it matters most. Also, I don't have anything against Hinata being a housewife. I simply think that in the long run it sets up for a lot of good angst, so I used the situation as such.


End file.
